Thread by @izzaaftab

#Google
I am very excited to announce that @MohsenAlif & I have won the Google Research Award!
Our project entitled "Is Economics From Afar Domain Generalizable?" falls under the Machine Perception category.
We are the only winners from Pakistan!
research.google/outreach/resea…

It's a good day for #Pakistan and a fantastic one for us.
Both @MohsenAlif & I are at @ITUPunjab which is where we got the chance to do this multidisciplinary & cutting edge work. It's not everyday when labs in computer vision & #Economics come together to create impact.

According to Google, The Research Scholar Program supports early-career faculty who are doing impactful research in fields relevant to Google and is intended to help to develop new collaborations and encourage long term relationships.

The project is multidisciplinary in nature; amalgamating aspects of #MachineLearning, #economics & #remotesensing to solve problems related to development and policy.
We use satellite imagery to detect slums across major cities in Pakistan. Then we go to there ...

[a]nd collect data to estimate poverty, deprivation and level of development. This helps identify, to the most micro level possible, where the next public intervention in health and education needs to be! Moreover, it gives a pretty good idea where to send transfer payments to!

Our work can guide businesses (small & medium) as well. The applications are immense and multifaceted!

Please check our work out at
im.itu.edu.pk/econai/
&
sdgtl.itu.edu.pk/putting-slums-…

Our work potentially revolutionises how data is collected and analysed in Pakistan. Moreover, and very very pertinently, it will help us & others work through important questions in the field machine learning, such as interpretability and domain generalization

This will help us continue to rethink #Economics as well. Moreover, we can think differently about #development .
#EconTwitter #AcademicTwitter #AcademicChatter

What started as an idea to explore ways of leveraging #technology to achieve #SDGs #SDG it has evolved into an exciting research agenda!

Getting this Award is very humbling for @MohsenAlif & I. We are very lucky to have an excellent and dynamic team of @SadafAkbar5 @mofasiurrehman & @Noor_Ul_Islam20 ! Guys, this recognition is as much yours as it is ours. Thank you for putting up with us!